The Pine Forests of the South [pp. 719-723]

THE PINE FORESTS OF THE SOUTH. 719
certain facts before me, duly stated, I stopped and reflected. Perhaps in the
absence of regular accounts we might have deceived ourselves; but with the
figures before us, we can come to no other conclusion; at the same time requesting the practitioners to renew their experiments carefully.
"The sorgho is not a violent poison for cattle; but if the effects observed, not
only in my cultivation, but also in that of many of my neighbors, be frequently
renewed, we ought necessarily to attribute to this plant a deleterious influence.
On a farm which I occupy myself, twenty-five horned cattle have been fed exclusively on sorgho during a month; and from the precise day on which it was
introduced in feeding the cattle, the journal of the farm shows a diminution of
the profits of the dairy by one half, and the same decrease was exhibited every
month of feeding with sorgho.
"On the other hand, there was, in respect to one of the cows, a case of wind
that caused its death. Any other kind of food might have produced a similar
accident; but what many of my neighbors have asserted is, the sterility of the
cow fed on sorgho. If these are facts, sterility on the one hand, and a diminution of half in the production of milk on the other, repeated regularly in consequence of feeding the cows on sorgho, we must conclude from them that this
plant is injurious; since it hinders or diminishes all kinds of production by interfering with the secretions, which must necessarily provoke a perturbation in
the animal organism; all morbid causes having their origin in suppressions of
this nature.
"I know that no improvement of the soil is possible without an abundance of
green food; and their production regularly successive by a course of cropping
is not always an easy matter. I should, therefore, regret being obliged to abandon the sorgho. The desire of preserving for a plant so luxuriant, a place in
the production of green food, and also, on the other hand, the fear of introducing
into the midst of our cultivated plants a dangerous auxiliary, ought to operate
as a doubly powerful motive for prudently and honestly renewing the experiments. " MARQUIS DE VIBRAVE."
3.-THE PINE FORESTS OF THE SOUTH.
A correspondent of the Savannah Republican sends us the corrected copy of a
very valuable article which he prepared recently ui,on the commercial value of
the pine forests of the South, which Governor Troup thought would eventually
be as valuable as our best cotton lands. The Legislature of Georgia at its last
session asked for the appointment by Congress of a commission to inquire into
the extent of the Pine Belt, the probable time of its duration under its present
rate of depletion, the statistics of the timber trade, etc., etc. The writer says:
I propose, sir, to jot down a few ideas connected with this Pine Belt, and
to give a few statistics drawn from the small stock of public and other documents before me; and if it meets with your approbation, to make your journal a
medium of publication, and invite our citizens to communicate such facts relating to the matter as will be interesting to the public. By adopting this course
no doubt much valuable information will be obtained, and many hints that will
be serviceable to our Representatives in carrying out the wishes of our Legislature embodied in the resolutions.
Timber is not, like cotton and rice, an annual growth. It requires centuries
for this crop to mature, and when the forest is once culled over, the crop is forever gathered, for we are altogether too fast a people to think of waiting a hundred years for another crop.
It has been estimated by the timber cutters (by counting the rings or grains
of a tree), that it requires from three to four hundred years for it to attain a
size sufficient for a mast or spar for a large-sized ship, and perhaps even this
may not be a fair criterion, for most of our planters in the pine region know
that there are on the lines of their land sapplings now no larger than a man's
arm that have the surveyor's mark, made forty years since.